things are bad in iraq, right?
yes, they’re bad.
very very bad, for all involved.
for iraqii’s.
and for u.s soldiers.
and now they’re going to get tragically worse.
for starters:
turkish forces were attacked by kurdish rebels based in iraq.
so now the turkish military are going to start attacking kurds in northern iraq.
the kurdish part of iraq was the only quasi stable part of iraq.
no longer.
it’s such a shame, especially the way that turkey has been treated by the european union and the united states over the last few years.
turkey, like most countries, has a very long and very complicated history.
but turkey is a secular state that has long desired closer contact and involvement with the west.
and the west has, in many ways, pushed it away.
what a shame, a terrible shame.
i was in turkey a few years ago, and it still stands as one of the most beautiful and most wonderful countries i’ve ever visited.
and i’m not an expert on the plight of the kurds, but i do know that kurdish rebels are killing turkish soldiers, and now the turks are going to attack the kurdish areas of iraq unless the bush administration can figure out some magical way of defusing the situation(with nuanced diplomacy not exactly being a strong suit
of the bush state department).
and the 3 great tragedies are that:
a-iraq will be further destabilized(the current president of iraq is kurdish, for example).
b-more turks will die at the hands of kurdish terrorists.
c-innocent kurds(not all kurds are pkk)will once again be killed and displaced.
the other things that have happened recently in iraq are the blackwater massacre and the battle in sadr city yesterday.
both of these events involved the well-publicized(within iraq)deaths of many, many innocent iraqii’s. and now the iraqii’s(especially the shi’ites)are furious.
again, it’s such a shame, because the u.s military had been making a lot of progress at actually reaching out to regular iraqii’s and learning iraqi customs and actually earning the trust of many iraqii’s.
but whenever innocents are killed(especially galling when they’re killed by private security companies)so much of the military’s good work just gets flushed down the toilet.
iraq is such a mess and such a shame.
would that this worthless war had never started.
now things are just going to get worse.
-moby
